Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The Joke

A business meeting is taking place where an executive enthusiastically announces that "gamifying work has been a huge success" and that they need to find the next big thing. A colleague with round glasses then suggests the reverse idea: has anyone tried "workifying" games? The caption below reads: "Shortly before the first MMORPG."

The joke is that MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like World of Warcraft are frequently criticized for feeling like actual work. Players spend hours grinding repetitive tasks, managing inventories, optimizing spreadsheets of stats, coordinating schedules with other players, and performing tedious chores -- all for virtual rewards. The comic presents this as the deliberate result of someone applying the concept of "workification" to games.

The Humor

The humor works on multiple levels. First, it inverts the trendy business concept of "gamification" -- which involves adding game-like elements (points, achievements, leaderboards) to work to make it more engaging. The reverse concept of "workifying" games sounds absurd, yet anyone who has played an MMORPG can attest that these games often feel remarkably like a second job. Players talk about "grinding," "farming," and "dailies" -- language that could just as easily describe tedious employment.

The caption framing this as a historical origin story adds another layer. It implies that MMORPGs were not an organic evolution of game design but rather a deliberate corporate scheme to make people do unpaid labor while thinking they are having fun -- which, given the subscription fees players pay, means they are actually paying for the privilege of working.

References

Gamification is a real design philosophy that became a major business buzzword in the 2010s, referring to the application of game-design elements (points, badges, leaderboards, progress bars) to non-game contexts to increase engagement. MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) are a genre of online games that includes titles like World of Warcraft (2004), EverQuest (1999), and RuneScape (2001), all of which are frequently noted for their work-like grinding mechanics.